Julie Bishop joins Lateline

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: And just a short time ago the Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop joined us from our Parliament House studio.

Julie Bishop, thanks for being with us.

JULIE BISHOP, DEPUTY LIBERAL LEADER: Good evening, Leigh,.

LEIGH SALES: Now that Joel Fitzgibbon has resigned, is this the end of the affair as far as the Opposition is concerned or did he have some more information about his dealings?

JULIE BISHOP: Leigh, it is not a good day for the country when a senior government minister is forced to resign because he's been caught out doing the wrong thing. The circumstances surrounding Mr Fitzgibbon's resignation have been devastating for the Government.

It has revealed that the Minister was prepared to use his privileged position as the Minister for Defence to gain a benefit for his family, or potential benefit for his family.

Now there are many questions that are still unanswered and the Minister resigned just prior to Question Time, thus avoiding further parliamentary scrutiny. He would have been aware that the Opposition had further lines of inquiry that we wished to pursue and by resigning just prior to Question Time, he avoided having to answer those questions in parliament.

LEIGH SALES: What are the lines of inquiry?

JULIE BISHOP: We did have a number of lines of inquiry relating to the meetings that he had organised for his brother as a chief executive of a health fund with ministers and with senior Defence officials from overseas.

We had a number of inquiries regarding his relationship with Helen Liu and the disclosure of gifts and benefits to him and his family. But we are now unable to ask the Minister directly because he has resigned and is a backbencher. And up until now the Prime Minister has protected Mr Fitzgibbon even though he's been lurching from scandal to scandal, crisis to crisis, starting with the SAS pay scandal last October.

LEIGH SALES: Mr Fitzgibbon said this afternoon that there were perhaps Judases in his department or office undermining him. Were those Judases where you got your tip-off that he had violated the Government's code of conduct?

JULIE BISHOP: Leigh, the fact that Mr Fitzgibbon is still finding excuses and indeed the Prime Minister was still finding excuses for him on the 7.30 Report tonight and suggesting there was a Judas in the midst, or ministerial staff had been leaking against him shows that's he's still not recognised that it was his behaviour that was unacceptable.

And by blaming his staff or suggesting that his staff are in some way to blame shows that he doesn't understand that it was his behaviour, his own behaviour, that has caused his downfall. It was not his staff that was involved in arranging meetings for his brother. It was not his staff that failed to declare travel allowance. It was not his staff that failed to meet the standards of ministerial ethics required of ministers. And I think it reveals that he thinks that had not this been made public, he would have got away with it.

LEIGH SALES: Well, you restarted the focus on Mr Fitzgibbon on Monday with a question in the House. What I want to know is what prompted you to raise this matter again? Had you received a tip-off, perhaps from somebody in Mr Fitzgibbon's office or the Defence department?

JULIE BISHOP: Leigh, I asked my question in Question Time because we wanted to ascertain whether the Prime Minister was still standing by the Minister for Defence even though we had indications that he was in breach of the standards of ministerial ethics imposed by the Prime Minister.

LEIGH SALES: And where did you get those indications from?

JULIE BISHOP: Oh, Leigh, when journalists start revealing their sources I'll start telling you where I get my information from.

LEIGH SALES: Can you rule out that they were from Mr Fitzgibbon's office or the Defence department?

JULIE BISHOP: But Leigh, this is missing the point. It's Mr Fitzgibbon's own behaviour that has led to his downfall.

LEIGH SALES: That may be so, but can you rule out that your tip-off came from within his own office or within his own department?

JULIE BISHOP: Leigh, there's been a pattern of conduct over many, many months in relation to many different issues and on each occasion Mr Fitzgibbon has blamed others. He blamed his department over the SAS pay scandal, which demoralised the SAS troops and their families. He blamed the Department again in relation to the spying allegations, and how demoralising would that have been for the Department when about 17,000 people were interrogated as to whether or not they'd spied on the Minister, and after two reports we find no evidence of it. And the Prime Minister and the former minister had insinuated that he was being spied upon because members in the Defence department didn't wish to go along with the reforms that the Minister was promoting.

So there's a pattern of conduct here. The Minister never admits that he's done anything wrong until he's caught out, and even then he blames somebody else.

LEIGH SALES: OK. The Opposition has today focused on a car that Kevin Rudd's been provided for free by an Ipswich dealer. What exactly are you accusing him of?

JULIE BISHOP: The Prime Minister has confirmed and indeed declared that he has received a free car and running costs from John Grant Motors. In Senate Estimates today it emerged that there was evidence that could have led one to believe that this car dealership was receiving some form of preferential treatment from the Government.

Therefore we quite legitimately asked questions in Question Time of the Prime Minister and of the Treasurer whether any representations had been made on behalf of this car dealership to Treasury for access to OzCar, the line of credit, the line of finance that the Government was providing.

Now the Treasurer confirmed that indeed he had made representations to Treasury on behalf of this car dealership and given the fact that there's a relationship with the Prime Minister - he has a free car from this car dealership - it's perfectly legitimate for us to pursue that line of inquiry.

LEIGH SALES: So are you saying that Kevin Rudd's done something wrong?

JULIE BISHOP: In the interest of transparency of accountability, the Government should provide all details relating to the Prime Minister and Mr Grant and the Treasurer's representations made to Treasury. Indeed, we would call upon the Government to reveal all details of representations made by Government ministers to Treasury on behalf of car dealerships for access to OzCar, this line of credit.

LEIGH SALES: Is this just a fishing expedition on your part, or do you have evidence that there has actually been some wrongdoing?

JULIE BISHOP: This is information that has been emerging in Senate Estimates. Now when you have a Government that is reluctant to answer question in Question Time, reluctant to provide information in Senate Estimates, we have to continue to ask tough questions.

But the Prime Minister's response is always to put up this idea that it's all part of a smear campaign. This is his standard defensive tactic whenever he's faced with tough questions or questions he doesn't want to answer, he immediately accuses the Opposition of a smear campaign. What we're doing is holding the Government to account, and in the interest of transparency, the Government should provide all details of representations made by ministers on behalf of car dealerships to Treasury.